Tag: wow

So let’s get started with learning the ropes before we move on to advanced techniques.

The Basics of Combat

Combat is very simple. If you’re new to roleplaying games then it might be a bit confusing, but I promise you its very simple. You have a ‘pool’ of ‘hit points’ or HP. This is your life force and determines if you’re alive or dead. If your HP ever reaches 0 then you’ll die (don’t worry, it’s not that bad) while if you lower your enemy’s HP to 0 then you win the battle and will collect your spoils from them.

HP can be lost in combat but it can also be recovered by heals from many different classes along with some class-specific self heals along with potions. It can be recovered outside of battle with food or bandages (from the First Aid profession). You’ll also slowly regenerate any health lost from battle whenever you’re not in combat. So don’t fret if you take a bit of a beating from a battle.

Actual fighting is pretty simple. You’ll be pitting your skills vs. the skills of your enemy. You’ll find that you have a set of skills on your action bar when you first start the game (see our Interface guide for more information on its default location). You’ll want to target an enemy and then use these skills in order to defeat them. Be careful, skills do use up your resources (Mana/Rage/Energy/Runic Power dependent on the class) so you’ll want to be conservative. However, auto attack doesn’t use anything (unless you’re a Hunter in which case it’ll consume arrows in order to use your Bow/Gun/Crossbow).

To find out more about how your class fights you’ll want to read the appropriate class guide for your class. Click here to see a listing of all of our available class guides.

If you’re having trouble grasping the basics then be sure to read the tutorial blurbs that first popup when you start the game. They’ll give you a ton of information about all of this.

Not All Enemies Are Created Equally

Not every enemy is the same nor can you take on any enemy that you see and be successful. You can only take on enemies that are near your level (see our Interface section of our Beginners Guide to find out where your level and your enemy’s level is represented). Your success against an enemy can be entirely dependent on how close you are to your enemy’s level.

Remember some enemies are elites, in which case you may need friends to take them down.

If you are below their level (and their level shows red) then you’ll likely lose. That’s because the enemy is way more powerful than you. If they’re a little bit above your level (orange) then you’re going to have some trouble and probably be exhausted after a fight. If they’re at your level (yellow) then you’ll have an easy time taking them out, but you’ll probably need to rest after a few battles. If they’re below your level (green) then they’re going to be a cake walk. If they’re way below your level (gray) then you can take them on without breaking a sweat, but you won’t gain experience from killing them.

Experience and Loot

When you kill an enemy you’ll be given experience (as long as they are close to your level) and loot. You can gain this loot by right click the enemy’s corpse. Not every enemy gives loot, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t see loot from certain enemies. You can find the loot you’ve collected in your bags.

You collect experience in order to level up. Every time you level up you’ll become more powerful, are able to take on higher level enemies, and can purchase new skills.

Using and Gaining Skills

You’ll be introduced to your skill trainer as you level up in the starting area. Skill trainers are also available in every capital city (just ask a guard for directions). You can buy skills from the skill trainer to use in combat. You’ll find these skills in your spellbook (see our Interface section of the Beginners Guide to find the spellbook and your action bar). Just simply drag them to your action bar and you’ll be able to use them. It’s important to use the right skills in battle which is why you should read our class guides for more information.

When you find an item you will see its name, a description of what it is, any bonuses that it provides, its durability, a sale price and its level requirement and its item level. It’s important to recognize what the critical information about an item is. This really amounts to its colour (for quick reference) and the stats that it provides.

Colour of item

Items like this whose names are in purple are among the best in the game.When you get gear one of the first things you will notice is the colour of the text for the name of the item. This actually tells you quite a bit about the gear right off the bat.

Gray – Gray items are essentially junk items to sell to the nearest vendor for a bit of cash.
White – White items are the next step up in item quality and are essentially normal type items.
Green – Next up are the green items, these are the lowest quality of item with bonuses. They are essentially low level magic items.
Blue – This is your next step up and for many levels the best items you will find. These are rare item drops or items that drop from bosses in instances. They generally have good stat bonuses for the item level.
Purple – Last up are purple or epic items. These are ultra rare (at least until the highest levels in the game) and provide the best stats for the items level.
There are others such as artefacts and heirlooms but these are not nearly as common and don’t really need to be discussed for new players. By the time you run into them you will know all you need to know about them.

Type of Item
This is pretty self explanatory, this is the type of item that it is. This shows up as two separate descriptors, for example: Leather Helm or Two-Handed Axe. These descriptors are generally shown in white text, but will show up in red if you are not able to use the item.

While weapons can be tricky about who can use what when and with what training, armour is fairly easy and can be summed up as follows:

These are your basic character statsItems are capable of having both basic and advanced stats. Basic stats are the 5 main character stats that show up on your main character information page. Each one is important to a different type of character and provides different bonuses.

Strength – Best for Warriors, Death Knights, and Paladins. Strength grants attack power for these classes which raises your damage output.

Stamina – Best for Tanks of any class. Every point of stamina grants the player 10 health.

Agility – Best for Feral Druids, Hunters, and Rogues

Intellect – Great stat for all casters. Intellect grants you additional mana so that you can cast more spells before you run out.

Spirit – Spirit grants more mana regeneration so that you gain it back faster and run out less often.

Advanced Stats on Items
These are the additional stats that can be granted on items and are much more complicated to figure out how much you need and at what level. As a new player it is generally just important to understand what they do. By the time you get to the middle or late levels of the game you can do more research on them then to find out the exact bonuses they provide.

This is because many of them grant the bonuses on a sliding scale, meaning that as you gain additional levels you need more points in the bonus to grant the same end resulting bonus. A good example of this is +hit, at level 60 you need 10 stat points in +hit to grant a 1% bonus to hit, but at level 80 you need 15.8 points to get the same +1% bonus. Again, it is not critical while levelling to know the exact values, just to understand that they change.

Attack Power – Attack power equates to extra DPS output for melee classes. 2 attack power equals out to one bonus damage per second.

Crit – This raises your chance to critically hit when you attack or cast a spell. A critical hit does extra damage compared to a normal hit,

Hit – This raises your chance to hit a target with either melee attacks or casting a spell. There is a base chance to miss targets, so this helps lower that chance and therefore raise your total damage output.

Expertise – Expertise lowers the chance that your target will block or parry you. Because spells can not be blocked or parried it is useless for casters.

Haste – Haste works for any class and lowers your attack or casting speed. This allows you to attack, cast, or heal faster and therefore do more over a given period of time.

Spellpower can add up quickly and increases your casting abilitiesSpellpower – This adds to the effectiveness of your spell casts. In theory if you added 100 spell power your spells would do 100 more damage or 100 more healing. In actual fact there is a coefficient used against each spell to determine the actual bonus, where longer spells get more of the bonus, while fast or instant spells count less of the bonus.

Defence – Defence is a tanking bonus, it reduces the chance that you will be hit both regularly or critically.

Block Rating and Block Value – These are again stats for a tank. Block rating raises the likely hood that you will block an incoming attack with your shield. Block Value raises the amount of damage that you will prevent when you block.